


April 3rd

by kotoriqueen



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 5 + 1 Fic, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, no ship - just holt family love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-04-17 23:15:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14199750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kotoriqueen/pseuds/kotoriqueen
Summary: Five times Matt is impatient for Katie/Pidge to grow up, and the one time he wishes he had been patient.Happy Birthday Pidge!





	April 3rd

i.

He’s so young when his grandparents take him to the hospital to see his parents and his new baby sister, and yet, despite how young, he still remembers the day she was born as if it was yesterday.

He remembers running into the hospital room, seeing his mothers weary but smiling face as he holds a pink blanket in her arms, and his father telling him to come forward. He’s lifted up and set on the bed, while his mother shows the little girl that is in the bundle of pink blankets. Her face was so chubby, and so rosy, and she was so  _small_. He wondered if he was that small, and wonders if she’ll be afraid of him because he’s bigger than her. All the nerves are coming to him as he looks over his sleeping baby sister, not even realizing his mother asks if he wanted to hold her. It takes his father to call out to him a few times before he responds, and he ends up curling his fingers into his pants, biting his lip.

“I don’t want to hurt her,” he replies, saying to low, but loud enough for his parents to hear.

His parents exchange looks, then their smiles widen.

“What makes you think you’ll hurt her?”

“She’s so small! And what if she wakes up when she’s in my arms and she starts crying?” Now all these worries are filling poor little Matt’s head. “What if she’s scared of me? What if she hates me? What if I’m not--”

“Matthew,” his mother calls out, keeping him from babbling his worries more. “relax, sweetie. Katie’s going to love you, and you’re going to be a wonderful big brother.”

Matt blinks then his eyes light up, “Katie?”

“Kathryn Elizabeth Holt,” his mother says. “Katie, for short. It’s a great name, isn’t it?”

“..Yeah.” Matt looks at his baby sister again, then a smile goes on his face. “I wanna hold her.”

His mother laughs, “I thought so.”

His parents help him get Katie into the right position in his arms, and he’s staring down at her sleeping face while his parents and grandparents watch with wide smiles on their faces. It’s only seconds later that Katie makes noises and Matt’s ready to freak out and hand her back, but her eyes open and the two of them make eye contact for a moment and it seems like all of Matt’s worries and doubts faded away just like that.

Matt’s smile could light up the whole town, “Hey, Katie.. I’m your big brother..”

And Katie blinks then smiles and there’s baby giggling and Matt freezes.

“She smiled at me. She smiled at me!”

“See? I told you she’d love you.” his mother says.

“I’m going to be the best big brother to you,” Matt tells Katie, even though she’s only minutes old and doesn’t quite understand him yet. “I can’t wait until you grow up so I can teach you so many things.”

ii.

It’s her first birthday and Katie’s still small.

It raised concern, and they tried to feed her more, but she eats so slow and doesn’t finish her bottles. It could be because she’s still developing, and they’ve been to the doctors for annual check ups but her weight seemed normal to them. It’s just that Matt had been a chunky baby and ate a lot, but was also spoiled rotten so that explains why the Holt parents are so concerned for their second little one.

Matt had helped his mother bake a cake for Katie’s first birthday – a small cake all to herself! Vanilla cake with cream cheese frosting and piping around the edges and a big pink and white candle in the shape of a one in the middle of it. The whole family is over, and there’s presents for Katie to rip apart. They sing happy birthday and have her blow out the candles. At first she looks at the flame a little confused so Matt steps up and shows her what to do. Instead, she grabs a fistful of cake – with _out_ blowing out the candle – and shoves it in Matt’s face.

“Katie! No!”

“Share!” Katie shouts, but her smile is wide. “Share..with.. Matt!”

“You have to blow out your candle first..” Matt mumbles. “I’ll do it with you?”

Katie’s smile is wider and she nods quick. Matt grins and counts down and Katie prepares herself to blow out the candle. Except, Matt blows it out, and as soon as he does, Katie shoves him, face first, into the cake that was meant for her.

There’s gasps coming from the family, which is followed by giggles. Matt lifts his head up, wiping cake and icing off his face. He’s not pleased, and yet he’s not going to yell at Katie because she just turned one, and he knows she doesn’t know any better. But she’s clapping her hands and laughing like mad, her pale cheeks turning red from how hard she’s laughing. Matt huffs, wiping some icing off his face and spreading it on her cheek. And then the laughter stops for a moment, and Katie blinks at first, processing what happened.

..And then she goes back to laughing.

“Well.. she wanted to share with you,” his father says between laughs. He bends down with a washcloth, helping Matt wipe his face off. “Looks like she did.”

“Oh, just you  _wait_ ,” Matt says, narrowing his eyes at his laughing baby sister, a smirk across his laugh. “Just you  _wait_ until you grow up. I’m going to shove your face into a cake one day.”

iii.

Katie’s five, and she’s been growing bit by bit, though she still eats like a bird – slow and doesn’t eat much. Matt came to the conclusion that Katie was part bird, and with how interested she seemed in pigeons when they went to the park, Matt decides to nickname her ‘Pidge’. Which Katie _hates_ , and pouts and whines when he uses it, and Matt laughs each time.

She’s about to start kindergarten and she’s nervous – so so nervous that she can’t sleep. Her parents bought her new clothes, new hair ties and ribbons – new  _everything_ for her to be prepared for the biggest day of her life: Going to kindergarten. Preschool was one thing, but now she’ll be in the same building as other big kids, and they’re going to be  _huge_ compared to her. She’s all tucked into her bed, her parents out at work for another hour or so, so Matt’s been looking after her. He had left her so she could sleep, but when he walks past her bedroom – dimly lit by her nightlight – he notices her eyes still wide open. Concerned, he steps in, knocking on her bedroom door, which makes her jump at first.

“Can’t sleep?”

“No..” Katie admits, and pushes her blanket off of her. She sits up, fingers curling into her comforter.

“Do you want me to read you another story?” Matt suggests, going to her bookcase. “I could read to you about astrology and the constellations--”

“Matt,” Katie calls out, but doesn’t make eye contact with her brother. “..Is kindergarten gonna be scary?”

Matt blinks at first, but his lips curl up into a smile and makes way to Katie’s bed, where he sits on the edge, “That’s what has you awake?”

Katie nods.

“It’s not scary,” Matt tells her. “and I’m being honest here. Kindergarten is fun – with snack time and nap time, plus my teacher was  _great_! There’s going to be sing-a-longs, and story time, and each kid has a special job to do every week. One cleans up the art supplies, one is the line leader, one is in charge of bringing snacks for that week..”

“Sounds like a lot of work...”

“It’s not,” Matt reassures. “It’s really fun and you’ll make a lot of new friends. I  _promise you_  that.”

Katie bites her lip, still unsure but she should trust her big brother. After all, he’s been through all of this so he should know what he’s talking about.

“W..will you read me another story? The star one?”

“The constellations, you mean?” Matt questions and Katie nods her head. “Of course. And when you get to kindergarten, you can impress all of them on how much you know.”

Katie grins wide, “Yeah!”

“I can’t wait until you’re a little older so you can come with dad and I when we stargaze,” Matt says as he retrieves the book and joins Katie back on the bed. “You’d love it, Pidge. You’re a smart girl, I’m sure you’d be interested in space.”

iv.

She’s done with grade school and into middle school now, and she comes home one day, running to her room in a rush and shutting her bedroom door with a slam. Matt flinches when he hears it, and he glances over at his wall in concern. It seems like everyday, Katie is coming home in a bad mood and crying her eyes out, and demands to be left alone. Matt sometimes leaves her, other times he brings her cake or cookies and tries to get her to talk but she doesn’t respond. This time, he decides that he’ll go to her room and not leave her until she talks. Besides, that’s what he signed up for when he wanted to become a big brother so badly.

“Pidge?” Matt calls out from her door. “Can I-”

“Go away!”

Matt sighs, wondering he even bothered to ask when he was just going to come in anyway. He turns the door knob slowly, pushing open her door and shutting it behind him. There Katie lies, face down on her bed, but her face buried into her pillows. She yells at Matt, though it’s muffled through her pillow, and even though she yelled, Matt shows no sign of moving anytime soon – not even if she threw something.

“I’m not leaving, Pidge,” Matt declares, leaning against her bedroom door. “You’ve been coming home really upset and I’ve had it. I want you to tell me what’s been going on at school.”

“None of your business!” she shouts. “And I told you not to call me  _Pidge_!”

And there goes the pillow, being thrown at Matt’s head, but Matt ducks in time, where it hits the door behind him. When he looks back up, he sees the angry look on Katie’s face but there’s tears running down her face and he feels his heart break into a million pieces. Who is making his sister so upset? Who is making her cry this hard? Matt has a serious look on his face, slowly walking forward towards Katie’s bed, where she pulls her knees up to her chest and buries her face into her knees. Matt sits on her bed, but makes no more movements.

“Please talk to me, Katie,” Matt begs. “I’ve left you alone all this time, thinking you’ll come to me at some point, but you just seem to be hurting more and more with each passing day.”

Silence.

“ _Please_. It breaks my heart seeing you like this. And I won’t tell mom and dad if you prefer it. I promise.”

Katie sniffles and looks up from her knees, “..Promise?”

“Cross my heart.” Matt says. Katie thinks about it for a moment, and she sniffles and hiccups. It’s then that Matt comes closer, hand on her back, rubbing it slowly. “Something is going on at school, isn’t it?”

“They call me a nerd,” Katie mutters. “they call me a nerd because I know too much, and participate a lot in class, and get high grades and so much praise from the teachers.”

“And being a nerd is a bad thing?” Matt questions, raising an eyebrow. “Your big brother is a  _nerd_.”

“You’re studying to become a pilot though! And go into space! It’s different..”

“Mm.. not really,” Matt shrugs. “Katie, all I’m saying is.. being a nerd isn’t a bad thing. I know how much it must hurt – actually, I  _do know_. I was called a nerd a lot back in middle school and it hurt. It took talking to mom and dad about my problems weeks after that started when they told me not to look into the  _now_ so much. Because.. so what if you’re a nerd? You’re learning about things you love, and what you’re passionate about. And if it makes you a nerd to learn more about space and what’s out there, then so be it! They’re just jealous because they don’t have a Holt brain.”

“..A Holt brain?”

“A Holt brain contains so much knowledge. We don’t knock anything out – instead our brains get bigger and bigger and suck up everything like a sponge,” Matt says. “How do you think I know so much?”

Katie blinks, thinking for a moment, but doesn’t come up with an answer.

“Because  _I’m a nerd_ ,” Matt answers for her. “and it’s fine to be a nerd, Katie. You’re studying alongside me to get into the Galaxy Garrison one day, too. Just you  _wait_ until that happens. When you’re older, your old classmates are going to be praising you instead of picking on you! They’ll be  _begging_  to be your friend then!”

Katie smiles a little, “You really think so?”

“I know so.”

A small laugh escapes Katie and she wipes away her tears with the back of her hand, “I guess.. Thanks, Matt.”

“No problem, Pidge.” Matt pats her on the shoulder and gets up from the bed. “Now, come on. Let’s go downstairs and steal cookies before dinner.”

“I told you not to call me  _Pidge_ ,” but Katie’s smile is still wide. “But I’ll let it slide, just this once.”

v.

It’s a week after her fifteenth birthday when the news flashes across the screen.

 _Kerberos Mission Failed due to Pilot Error_. Her fathers picture, her brothers picture, and Takashi Shirogane’s picture flashes across the screen along with the caption. She remembers coming down the stairs and seeing her mom staring at the television screen completely frozen. Katie’s frozen, too, standing at the steps and listening to the news report from there.

It was just a week ago that their scheduled call goes through, and the whole crew wished Katie a happy birthday. Matt even went and sang ‘happy birthday’ to her, totally off key, which made her embarrassed but laugh so loudly that made her father, Matt, and Takashi smile wide. They apologize for not being there for her fifteenth birthday, and Katie says they’ll make it up to her next year when they’re back from their mission to Kerberos.

And now Katie feels as if she jinxed that, because she’s not even certain if her father, brother, and Takashi are going to come back home. But Takashi was an amazing pilot – there had to be something the Galaxy Garrison was hiding from everyone.

“ _You better come back. Or I’m coming up in space to get you.”_

She still has a year before she could enroll into the Garrison, but with a little hacking she could change her birth date. She even debates changing her name, too, so none of the teachers give her sympathy about what happened to the Kerberos crew.

And after she’s kicked off the Garrison property, she decides to hack into the Garrison and change her name, birth date, and age. She even goes as far as cutting her hair short.

“I’m coming for you, Matt,” Katie tells herself in the mirror, after all her long hair is gone. It’s choppy, and messy, but with some styling, who is going to notice? “I don’t know how long it’ll take, but I’m  _coming_.”

Meanwhile, somewhere in a Galra prison, Matt has his knees curled up to his chest, wondering how much he’s missing Katie grow up stuck there, and how much he’s  _going_ to miss, depending how long he’s stuck there.

+i.

Hunk had created something that converts Altean time and dates into Earth time, though he doesn’t think it’s exact – most likely far from it – but it’s the closest thing they have. He hasn’t really worked out the  _time_ , but the dates and year was another thing.

Matt looks it when the third of April is circled. His eyes widen.  _Katie’s birthday_. Or well, he should say  _Pidge’s birthday_  now, since she doesn’t seem to hate that name any longer. It’s funny how his little sister grew up from hating the nickname to using it to get into the Garrison.

He searches out for Pidge, only to find out from Coran that Voltron is fighting Galra at the moment, but their fight is nearing the end so the paladins will be coming back shortly. Matt should have known – he had woken up to the alarms, but had ended up going right back to bed. And besides, his little sister is a paladin of Voltron, and she has a job to do, and just because he’s back and their father is (hopefully) back on Earth, he can’t expect her to stop everything and stop fighting the Galra. There’s still several that are rebelling against Lotor and they have to do all they can to change their minds or make sure he’s not killed on his throne.

After all, Voltron and Lotor are a team now, even though it sets some of them off. But Allura has no doubts or worries in the slightest.

Matt counts the ticks until the paladins come back, and Matt waits in the lions hangars. Specifically, he waits in Green’s, and when the lion zooms in, Matt has his arms at his side and hands balled into fists. He waits for his little sister to come out of the big mechanical lion, but she comes out slower than expected, and when she does come out--

“You’re injured..” Matt says, eyes wide and filled with worry. Heart thumping hard against his chest, he runs to Pidge, though she shows no sign of pain nor does she look like she’ll topple over any minute either. “What the hell happened?”

“Stupid sentry got me with their gun,” Pidge explains, taking her helmet off and running a hand through her hair while her other arm holds her helmet. “It’s not as bad as it looks. Besides, I’m used to it.”

Matt doesn’t know if his eyes could  _get_  any wider. She’s  _used to it_? Matt swallows, his eyes stinging with the tears that threaten to fall. He should have known. After all, his little sister is a paladin of Voltron, and has been fighting Galra for a long time, with so many stories to tell and with her getting stronger with each passing quintant. She’s grown up so much since he’s been gone, and he’s missed so much of it. Take him back to the day where she was first born, and her first birthday where she shoved his face into the cake. Take him back to the day where his little sister would come into his room with nightmares, where she clung onto her older brother and wouldn’t let him go. Take him back to the past, where he’ll tell his younger self to be patient with her growing up, because in a blink of an eye, you might miss something.

Over the years, he’s been looking over her. He swore to himself he’d be a great big brother, and as she grows up, he’d be teaching all these things. He was impatient with her growing up, but knew he had to  _try_  to be patient, since babies are still developing and it’d take her a while to understand certain things or do certain things. But that didn’t stop him from teaching her about space and rocket ships and constellations as she was growing, and by the time she was thirteen and about to enter middle school, she knew all these things about space and impressed her teachers. (Not so much her fellow students, though.)

He remembers telling her when she was in middle school, when she was picked on for being a  _nerd_ , that she should wait until she grows up and she’ll be someone famous. And now it seems like that went by in a blink of an eye, and his little sister is a paladin of Voltron, defending the universe, and getting injured so many times that she’s used to it by now. He misses when she has sick as a kid, and he’d worry about her and wait on her hand and foot, not even wanting to go to school. Or when she injures her ankle tripping over a root in the ground when the family goes camping, and he carries her on his back the whole time.

And now she grew up, to where pain is nothing and a shot to the side is barely anything to worry about. God.. where did the time go?

“Matt?” Pidge calls out, pulling her brother from his thoughts. “You’re crying.”

“I’m crying?” Matt is in disbelief, but he raises a hand to his cheek, where he feels the tears on his cheeks. “Huh.. guess I am.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” is Matt’s response at first, but Pidge raises an eyebrow. “..You-- you’ve just grown up so much, Katie.. I’m just reminiscing. You’ve grown up so much and I feel as if I missed so much of it. I looked at the calendar Hunk made, and it’s the third of April..”

“Seriously? Time goes by fast.” Pidge comments, still messing with her hair. “..I didn’t even notice.”

“Mhm.”

“I also know I grew up a lot. I had the thought of you and dad keeping me going, never making me stop studying or searching for both of you,” Pidge continues on. “I had a great big brother to look up to as I was growing up, so I guess I was impatient with how long it takes me to grow up when I wanted to be like you.”

“Well, you copied my hairstyle and stole my glasses--”

“You  _gave me_ your glasses, thank you,” Pidge interrupts, huffing. “and I had to cut my hair. The Garrison kicked me off the property. But I mean.. I wanted to be as strong as you, and be the one to protect you at some point when you’ve done so much for me.”

“You’ve protected me, mom and dad, and thousands of others on Earth and in the galaxy because you’re a Paladin of Voltron,” Matt tells her. “So I think you’re plenty strong, and you’ve done what you wanted to do. Even though in a blink of an eye, you went from being my small baby sister, just minutes old to..  _this_.”

“Yeah, well.. Just because I grew up so fast, doesn’t mean I’m still not your baby sister,” Pidge notes. “Not really  _small_ anymore, but I’m still your baby sister, Matt.”

“Heh.. I guess you have a point.”

“And I could  _really_ use my big brother right now to give me a piggy back ride to the infirmary,” Pidge adds on. “My side doesn’t hurt bad, but I could still use more disinfectant and a proper bandage.”

Matt grins wide, and turns around, going down on one knee so Pidge could hop on his back, “All aboard the Matt Holt Express.”

Pidge snorts, “You’re such a nerd.”

“Takes one to know one, Katie.”


End file.
